Ollie Pope Reinforces Status to England's Number Three Role with Strong 90 Versus Lions

It's tough to determine how significant of the English team's warm-up game will be remotely relevant when their Ashes series contest starts 10km away at the Perth venue on the coming Friday – a brief gap in geography or duration but ages away in importance and atmosphere – but if it achieved solely strengthening Ollie Pope's confidence, that by itself has rendered the exercise beneficial.

The English side's No 3 – this fact is surely totally clear – followed his first-innings century by adding a further 90 in the second innings, and the truly remarkable was less about the quantity of runs but the style in which they were scored. At times the player seemed imperious, smashing a dozen boundaries and a two of sixes, hitting the ball beautifully but with aggressive determination.

This was just a practice match versus a England Lions team that deployed fully 11 bowlers across a match played in front of a small group of people in a public park, but it was nevertheless hugely praiseworthy. To note, England, chasing of 202 once the Lions closed their follow-on innings on 251 for six, triumphed by a margin of five wickets when Smith raced the team across the finish line with a stream of fours and sixes.

Crawley and Ben Duckett, the remaining significant first-innings' performers, both failed in the second knock, while Root scored several more points – 31 on this occasion – but was not enormously more convincing, then being puzzled and subsequently dismissed by Jacks. Harry Brook met an identical fate a little later.

Bashir – who concluded the game having bowled 12 bowling spells for each side – will have faced part of the strokes he bowled to rather challenging. His opening six deliveries versus the Lions conceded 56, with Ben McKinney tucking in to bowling that if not completely loose was certainly not very threatening.

At the end the sixth spell of those deliveries, the English side's remaining three pitchers had given away nearly exactly the equivalent number of runs – 57 – from 15, though the bowler became a slightly less giving as time passed, allowing 27 from his final six. He took one wicket, taking a clever, low grab, leaning to his right, to finish Jacob Bethell's batting stint for 70, from 80 balls.

Jacob Bethell, redeeming scoring merely three in the first innings, was one of three half-centurions in the Lions' top order. McKinney's returns from opener were more consistent than those of their No 3: he notched 66 in their first innings and improved by two in their second, facing 61 balls over his 50 runs, with five and a couple six-hit shots, each off Bashir's bowling. Bethell reached 68 before a poor shot to Stokes at cover position, who made a stooping grab at low down.

Jordan Cox displayed similar steadiness, and backed up his first-innings 53 with another 57, at about a run per delivery. He produced a few remarkably beautiful hits on the way, featuring a straight hit and a pull from successive Brydon Carse balls to attain his half century.

After missing the first day of this match with a illness and provided only the most minor of contributions to the follow-up, Brydon Carse bowled brilliantly when finally afforded the opportunity, with Ben McKinney and Cox part of his three wickets.

This report may be updated